I don't
expect you to know why people stay in places that are entirely awful.
I wouldn't know, either, except that I've been there. I've
stayed in those sort of situations. I've spent many years of my
life in them.

We
stay… we stay because there is always the risk that the next place,
the next situation, will be worse, will be even more awful, than the
one you're in now. And after the first few times, you fear going
anywhere, fear moving to the worse place.

Then
you try to stop moving, to stay where you are, so you can try and
make that place a little better, a little kinder… But it never
works. You move again, get pushed on, sent away. Or it gets so bad
that you can't stand it, and run, and get moved anyway.

Life
isn't fair like that. You have to try, you try so hard, but in
the end, nothing really matters. It's all the same. Until you
escape, and then you're free. But your life has been so screwed up
that you're screwed up too, and you've spent so much of your life
moving on that you can't work properly, knowing that you will only
move again, and you have ideas so completely alien that you are
rejected, and despised.

Or
maybe that's just me.

January
6th

I'm
exhausted. Not by what I've done in the last few days, or weeks, or
months, or even years, but by life itself. I'm tired, because of
what life has done to me. It has given me so many things, but they're
almost all bad, almost all cause me pain.

It took
my parents. It took my whole world away, in one fell swoop, without
even any warning. Then it took my first set of foster parents away
from me. I loved them nearly as much as I loved my parents.

Then it
took me. It set me rattling from one set of new 'parents' to the
next, each worse that the last.

Now…
I've found a new family, of a sort. But it took half my lifetime.
Half a lifetime of being rejected, laughed at… but it's changed.
Well, some of it has.

Still
life exhausts me. It's more vibrant now than it ever was, and I
feel more and more fatigued. I don't know what's happening to me.
Well, I do, but it makes no sense. Why punish me all my life, then
give me… nearly the exact life I want, and have wanted since I can
remember?

Perhaps
it is waiting, still going to punish me for some unknown act, taking
away my happiness only to plunge me into even greater depths of
despair.

Maybe
I'm being paranoid. Or maybe not. My life has been one misery after
another. It has only got better recently. Why should the last bit of
my life be better than the rest? It'll get worse soon enough. Maybe
I should just enjoy it while it's still there.

January
11th

I work
hard – I try my best. I do what I can. I try to save lives.
Sometimes I do. More often, I can't save them, and they die. Like my
parents did. I try, but nothing I can do can save them.

People
I work with sometimes look at me, wishing they could be like me. Or
at least, that's what a select group of people tell me. But I don't
know why people would want to be in my shoes. Not… not with my
life, with my memories. No. I wouldn't want to bestow that curse on
anyone, not my best friend, nor my worst enemy.

I know
a man… a man that is courageous and brave, has some idea of how I
feel, of what I've lost. He's lost a son, and he's done some
terrible things. He regrets them, but can't take them back. So he
lives with them.

He's
stronger that me, braver than me, and has accomplished so much more.
I love it when he says that I've done something right, when he says
I've done well. But… those occasions are rare, much more rare
than those times when he says I've screwed up, when he says that
I'm wrong.

I hate
those times. I feel my face redden, and I duck my head, trying to
hide my shame. I know a woman, a woman as brave as that man, and with
a life almost as varied. She'll do anything to save someone she
loves, will sacrifice herself for someone else, no matter what the
cost to her.

Those
two people are two thirds of the small group of people who tell me
that other people think I'm lucky. The third… a warrior, braver
than me by far – he faces down armies, where I would hide and
cower.

They
are my life now, my family. I hold them close to me, hoping that it
will last. But it won't. It can't. It never has, it never does.

It
never will.

January
17th

I feel
old. I don't look old, but I feel it. My mind… there is so much
information, so many memories, contained in it, it is fuller than I
ever thought a mind could be. It hurts, sometimes, the strength of
those memories, the… the ferocity of them.

I try
to forget. I try… I try to bury my mind in my work, in trivial
tasks, but I can only forget for so long, then all those things flood
back in, a deluge of pain, of terror.

Things…
the tiniest things… a smell, a small object, a mere symbol…
anything can bring those memories back, even a word said at a certain
time, perhaps a song on the radio, an advert on the television…
it's too hard to avoid them.

Even
when I'm not on Earth… yes, it's hard to believe, I know, but
humour me… things jump out at me, distract me from what I'm
doing, stopping me from saving lives, where I know I could have. That
brings back more memories, memories of my parents… if I could have
saved them, just tried that bit harder to get them out from the
cornerstone… my life could have been so different…

January
25th

Coming
back from another planet, seeing people lined up in front of me as I
return home… it's wonderful. It makes me feel wanted, needed…
part of a family larger than the three I count as my closest kin.
This… this is the first time in my life I've ever felt like this.
I love it.

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